Perfidious perfection

I thought about this today while in the dentist's waiting room, filling in a form which asked how satisfied I was with my smile :? , while looking at a poster of a young woman with a perfect row of bright, shiny, white teeth. I said I was very happy with my smile and I am despite some wonky teeth which have been bathed in tea for 73 years and include a partial plate. I'm happy with my smile because I like smiling, it comes quickly and I was fortunate enough to grow up in an era when perfection didn't even come into it.

I feel for young people who develop arthritis today. It was bad enough back in the 60s but now young people are expected to look impossibly beautiful all the time and ail nothing especially - God forbid! - something as potentially disfiguring as arthritis. They feel cheated because they have lived exemplary lives, eating healthily and exercising regularly. Why, they wonder, do I have this dreadful disease? It's not fair.

Of course, it's not fair but, contrary to all the ads, neither is life. This is how it goes. We do all the right things and still get arthritis and it cannot be cured. It can be ameliorated. We can, with meds, diet and exercise, prevent the worst excesses but it can't be cured.

I guess I'm writing this because I feel angry that our young people are being almost force-fed lies. Life isn't perfect. In fact, life itself is terminal from the minute we emerge from the womb. We can't plan it out indefinitely. With arthritis, we often can't plan at all. But at least that's real. Arthritis does actually teach us to live in the real world not in some ridiculous series of adverts where perfection is obligatory. And it enables us to find real friends, real people who like us for ourselves and not for our pearly white teeth or even straight, fully functioning joints.

Crikey! All that from a dental check-up in which no treatment was needed